


Pain and prejudices

by TheTimeTravellingHufflepuff



Series: 30 Days Of Shenko [8]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, I'm Bad At Titles, I'm Sorry, M/M, Post-Horizon (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 17:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17532881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTimeTravellingHufflepuff/pseuds/TheTimeTravellingHufflepuff
Summary: The universe really hated him. And he hated Shepard.





	Pain and prejudices

Kaidan was ready to kill something when the ship sent to pick him up finally arrived nearly two weeks after he sent the message. He’d been ready to leave the goddamn colony the minute he turned his back to Shepard, and yet he had had to wait thirteen days before being able to flee Horizon.

Of course, of all the Alliance ships in existence, it had to be the Orizaba that had been tasked with retrieving him. John fucking Shepard’s mother’s ship. The universe really hated him. And he hated Shepard.

How could he do that? That fucking traitor! Kaidan could have killed him. He probably should have, or at least he should have arrested him and his little terrorist friends.

No. He couldn’t have. Because for all he hated Shepard, he still loved him, still was in love with him. And it hurt. It hurt so bad.

Kaidan hated Shepard and he hated himself for still caring so much about him and his well-being even after seeing him wearing Cerberus emblem as easily as he used to wear the Alliance’s.

His fist flew and hit the cold metallic panel of the elevator. His hand cried in agony but he couldn’t care less. He watched the blood dripping from his injured fingers. He was about to punch the wall again, but a small yet strong hand stopped him.

“I think that’s enough Commander.”

Captain Shepard’s stare was hard but Kaidan didn’t waver.

“I need you to calm down Alenko. If you don’t, I’m afraid you’ll have to spend some time in the brig.”

“I can’t! I... I just can’t. Ma’am.”

“I know you’re hurt, Commander, but you’re not the only one. How do you think I feel, knowing that my son, who I thought dead for the last two years, appears to be alive and well and doesn’t even judge important to at least message me to update me? I know you were friends but...”

“Friends. Right.”, he scoffed. “All due respect, ma’am, but you don’t know anything about my relationship to your son."

“And by ‘all due respect’, you mean ‘fuck you’, I guess.”, Captain Shepard deadpanned as the both of them exited the elevator and entered her quarters.

“No, I mean that I do respect you but you know nothing about your son. But at the same time, it appears I don’t either. He played us. He played me.”

“Alenko, listen to me carefully: whatever is going on in this head of yours, forget it. I don’t care what you think, I know my son is not a terrorist. John hates Cerberus more than anything.”

“He looked quite chummy with them on Horizon, though. Could have fooled me. Oh wait, he did. When he pretended to hate them before he faked his own death and went working with them.”

“You’re blinded by your anger and your pain, Commander. You pretend to know my son better than me and still think him capable of such a thing? Do you treat all your friends with all the same distrust?”

“I’m not sure I’m the biased one here. Your love for your son is...”

“Stop it! Do you know what John did when he discovered what really happened on Akuze? Why all his unit died that day? He called me, ranted about how he would kill every damn Cerberus executive to cross his path, then he cried. For nearly an hour straight. That’s how I know that whatever is happening with my son and Cerberus right now is not what it appears to be. Have you ever considered that John could be on a deep-undercover mission?”

“A mission important enough to blow up the Normandy, causing the death of nearly two dozen soldiers and Alliance personnel, just so that he could go undercover? Not a second, no.”

“For fuck’s sake, Alenko! Listen to yourself! Of course, the attack of the Normandy wouldn’t have anything to do with it! Doesn’t mean that the brass didn’t use John’s supposed death to make him infiltrate Cerberus as an Alliance defector. Why can’t you even imagine it to be a possibility?”

“Because he would have told me. Because he wouldn’t... Because... Because...”

Kaidan’s breath was suddenly short and unsteady. His body started to shiver all over, his mind went blank and his eyes pooled with unshed tears. His knees fell to the ground.

“Why did he leave me? Why couldn’t he say that he was alive?”

Kaidan was now sobbing and trembling in the middle of the Captain’s cabin.

“Oh shit. Alenko. Kaidan. It’s you, right? John told me not long before the attack on the Citadel that he met someone. It was you.”

Kaidan could only nod. Forgotten the anger, all his relief and pain were coming out in the form of unstoppable sobs. Relief than Shepard was alive and well, pain that he let him mourn him for two years, that he didn’t trust him enough to let him know that he was not dead, pain that he abandoned him.

“I... I hate him.”

“I know you do. I do too. We both hate him a little bit right now, but only because we love him so much. Believe in him. Believe in John, Kaidan.”


End file.
